Leading this Renaissance is 35-year Gonza Rodriguez, a Porto Alegre-based illustrator whose detail-rich images of footballers - past, present and immortal -- are slowly gaining somewhat of a cult status across this football-mad continent, and the rest of the world via the internet.

Gonza is Argentinian, and lives in this southern Brazilian city that is perhaps more Argentina - physically and culturally -- than it is Brazil. In Centro Historic, a Bohemian barrio just off the Guaiba River embankment is where Rondriguez's work flowers. The Brecho do Futebol is a bar cum shrine to all things football. In the forest of memorabilia - old photographs, magazines and football jerseys from all over the world - you also find a Royal Challengers Bangalore shirt, which the owner bought online mistaking it for a football shirt.

Hardly a stone's throw away is the Los Trapos Football Culture, a concept boutique that attempts to reclaim football symbols and brands lost to commercialization. Gonza's creative outlet finds a common meeting ground in this retro setting.

At this World Cup, Gonza can be seen at Argentina's matches, with a banner that has riled the Brazil fans no end. "People in Brazil claim to have a mystical, almost godly connection with football. But my banners depicts the Pope, who is considered the representative of God and who happens to be Argentine, a football god, Diego Maradona, again from Argentina and in the centre, Messi as Messias," he chuckles, adding, "The Brazilians get very angry but they don't react because they are friendly people, but you know they are seething inside because it disrupts their established ideas of faith and football." On Tuesday, after Angel Di Maria scored against Switzerland in extra time, Gonza quickly added a sketch of the wiry winger alongside, with a legend which was a further wordplay on faith: "D10S, Messias, Papa Y Un Angel."

Gonza explains famed Argentinian-Brazil rivalry the idea from an artist's point of view. "I am perhaps the only Argentinian cartoonist living in Brazil at the moment. While other times it is okay, it can get complicated when it comes to football. Socially, sometimes the two sets of people are confused. See, Argentinians love Brazil and they love us back. In summer we invade their beaches. Santa Catarina in Florianopolis becomes an Argentinian province. But when the ball starts rolling, it all changes. There is too much suffering.

Gonza too is not unaffected by the talk of how a potential Brazil-Argentina final is what the world wants here, the rest of the teams being bit players in this central drama. "Yes," sighs, almost as if not wanting it. "That is a dream of both sides of people, but there is too much to win and lose in this game."

"As an Argentinian, I understand that if Messi wins here he probably becomes the best player in the history of the world. Simple as that but it is very difficult," he says adding that how he stumbled upon the superstar's parent sitting in the stands in the Porto Alegre stands in the game against Nigeria. "They were just sitting there, with everybody else, in the Category Two seats. Unbelievable!"

Till such time then, Gonza resolves - and expresses -- his inner turmoil by sketching and poking fun at his adopted country. It has caught the attention of the world's media and cameras who zoom on his banners during the games. "I see my work on T-shirts, on beer mugs. The great Falcao chose to make my sketch if his as the cover of his biography. And now, by banners are seen in the stadiums. As an artist, it gives me a great sense of satisfaction."

But, insists Gonza, he will not be cast as merely someone who sketches funny-looking or even humorous caricatures. "My illustrations should tell a story, I like to do a good caricature with the face in focus, but it should be able to transmit the essence of the character, while capturing the essence of it." Maybe that's why he takes hours of a single sketch. His daytime job as an art head at newspaper, Zero Hora, Gonza has his own 'column' on the pages where interprets his own player of the week. "That is my space, my corner," he says.

He whips out his phone to show and explain a Luiz Suarez sketch that he did before the England game. It has the Uruguayan in a silent growl, faced raised, teeth gleaming and nerves protruding out and they extend from the Uruguayan jersey in the same colour. "Suarez depicts a certain Garra Chharua, an Indian fighting quality typical to players from this region.

"I love the iconography of the Indian religons," says Gonza, "There is rich graphic detail available in Buddhist and Hindu images." He points to a Gordon Banks illustration, that depict the former England goalkeeper with many hands, and while it may appear as the diagonal bars of the Union Jack, but the original idea inspired, he says, by Hindu deities who have many arms.

"I love the old football," he says, "That is why many of my illustrations are of old legends and forgotten footballers. A less commercial and an idea richer in history is what Latin American football is all about. I try to keep that alive."

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